Catherine Marshall is the first to acknowledge she's no birder.
But on her weekly runs around the pedestrian loop circling Reid Park and the Randolph golf complex, she's dismayed at the trash buildup around a golf course pond near South Alvernon past the driving range.
Marshall, a 56-year-old health researcher, first complained in February about what she characterized as "an amazing amount" of trash and litter and filth collecting at the backwaters of the pond, beyond the greens.
"I've lived here since 1980 and I had never seen such an accumulation of filth and trash in any one place," she said, referring to a collection of plastic bottles, plastic foam cups and trash. "I don't have any particular consciousness about our environmental situation and birds, but anybody looking at this would say, 'This can't be good.' "
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She said she surmises there isn't more of an outcry because travelers by car can't see the mess, and because path users probably shrug it off. "People just say, 'Yeah, it's filthy, but the city doesn't have any money."
The city cleaned it up after her initial complaint, with Councilman Steve Kozachik offering to get out there with his gloves and a bag to do it personally, given staffing reductions.
But Marshall said the problem keeps recurring. "I know the city has a limited budget, and I'm open for suggestions, but there has to be some way to address it."
Parks Director Fred Gray said the problem is going to be an ongoing one.
The Dell Urich Municipal Golf Course, he said, was reconstructed in the mid-1990s to serve as a detention basin to help relieve flooding conditions along the Arroyo Chico to protect the adjacent Colonia Solana neighborhood. The Arroyo Chico drains an area of more than 11 miles in central and downtown Tucson. A 1920s concrete culvert designed to handle flood runoff is no longer sufficient during peak flows along the length of the arroyo.
The redesigned course intercepts flow from about 3 square miles, with the runoff ultimately draining through a concrete box culvert into the existing channel of the Arroyo Chico.
Any time there's a rain, he said, there's going to be debris that washes into that basin.
And as long as people keep tossing trash in washes, there's not much in the way of a long-term fix coming, especially in times of reduced staff. "The solution is to pick it up, which we will do, but our first obligation is to get it off the golf course, which people are paying to use," Gray said.
"We could pick it up today, and if it rains, it will just be dirty again," he said.
He said the city staff planned to address the mess in the coming days.
DID YOU KNOW?
The areas now known as Reid Park and the Randolph and Dell Urich golf courses were all collectively known as Randolph Park for more than 50 years.
At the request of the Tucson businessman who bought and donated the land in the early 1920s, the park was originally named for Epes Randolph, a Southern Pacific Railroad executive who also served as chancellor of the University of Arizona and was a partner in the development of the original Santa Rita Hotel. He died in 1921 at the age of 65.
In more recent times, portions of the park have been renamed to honor Gene C. Reid, longtime parks director who developed many of the facilities there, and Dell Urich, longtime pro at Randolph Golf Course.
Contact reporter Rhonda Bodfield at rbodfield@azstarnet.com or 573-4243.
